


The Lonely Path

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Order 66, Sad ending?, Suitless Vader, Vader Gets an Unexpected Visitor, a very small one, unresolved ending?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 05:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16487081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: Vader killed Obi-Wan on Mustafar, but years later, to his horror, Vader finds he misses Obi-Wan. Terribly.Finding a small child with Obi-Wan's eyes makes it all even more complicated.





	The Lonely Path

**Author's Note:**

> So many, many hearts to Timothy Zahn, because in “Thrawn: Alliances” Vader refers to the experiences of Anakin Skywalker in his head as “The Jedi.” Also, Anakin/Vader trying to show off that he can think, can deduce? Leaves me grinning like an idiot, because when these two try to measure their dicks it turns into measuring their intelligence.
> 
> And Thrawn, the darling precious Thrawn, will always win that contest. <3
> 
> Thrawn is not in this story, but Vader dividing experiences into “his” and “The Jedi's” sure is.
> 
> Courtesy Warning for Qui-Gon Fans: To add extra angst, I presented Qui-Gon as a dismissive, self-focused person again.

 

Lord Vader sat on the roof of the Jedi Temple, one foot hanging off the edge, the other braced up, his arm resting on his knee. The wind ruffled his hair, and up here, the sounds of the party going on inside couldn't be heard.

Palpatine had...

Palpatine had ordered the Temple cleared of the corpses and blood, and had taken it for his own. It was the Imperial Palace now, filled with all the vapid beings from the days of the Republic, dressed just as garishly as ever, only instead of being grumpy about a war...

They were partying.

Magnificent balls were being thrown, dancing and laughter and wine and the sparkling of corusca gems...

Vader still despised those people. Moving them, calling them Imperial, knowing they'd clapped for Palpatine's announcement of an Empire didn't make them less despicable in Vader's eyes.

Vader felt uncomfortable about the people who were always around, now, people he'd always avoided if at all possible before. But it was worse, because Vader never wanted to set foot in this building again, and yet Palpatine had insisted on claiming it, like it was the spoils of war.

Giant drapes hung from the walls, with the Empire's new emblem blazoned on them in crimson and black.

Vader wouldn't have changed what he did in order to save Padmé, but... this was a killing ground. A place steeped in blood. The screams had barely faded, and yet now beings who never did a decent thing in their lives were partying here.

Vader wanted to kill them too, but he wasn't allowed.

The corpses had been dumped into one of the refuse pits. To be crushed into giant cylinders, then shot into the sun.

As a child, The Jedi had participated in races in the refuse tubes, in between the launching of the cylinders. If he went down there now, perhaps one of the silver canisters would be containing bodies of those who died here, or the bodies the clones brought with them as proof of kills across the galaxy.

Maybe this one carried The Apprentice's beloved Plo Koon. Maybe that one held Aayla Secura. Maybe the next held... The Apprentice herself.

Vader forced breath out between his teeth.

His hand had been forced. He wasn't responsible for any of this. Yes, he'd been the one to swing the saber, but the children who died? That wasn't his fault.

And Kenobi...

Kenobi was a fool. In the end, Vader couldn't save him if he didn't want to be saved. Kenobi didn't want to outlive the death of his family. Had taken one look at Padmé's corpse, had probably known it was Kenobi's own fault.

_ The Jedi would never have attacked Padmé if Kenobi had not been there. _

The Jedi had loved Padmé Amidala. There was no way he would have harmed her, or the children within her, if...

That, too, was not Vader's fault. Both of the dead had known what The Jedi was capable of when angry—

_ Not Kenobi,  _ something within him whispered,  _ he didn't know. He couldn't believe his eyes, there was shock, disbelief, agony— _

— they'd  _ known,  _ and they shouldn't have made him angry.

They brought their fate upon themselves. So had the Order. They should never have betrayed Palpatine.

Still.

The site where thousands had fallen was not the place to simper and flirt and giggle. It wasn't a place  _ for  _ people whose biggest concern was about hems and necklines and how many feathers to decorate a suit with.

The Imperial Court did not consist of people, the same way the Order hadn't been people, the way the Tuskens weren't people. They were all lesser. Closer to being animals.

There was no guilt in killing something that wasn't valuable.

Palpatine was too busy to train him. It frustrated Vader. All he had left was Palpatine, and the man wouldn't even teach him. Instead, he sent Vader on errands. Tracking down the few stragglers who'd escaped. Crushing their lightsabers, stealing the crystals, dumping their corpses in gutters or trash bins, or just leaving them lying where they fell for the crows and rats.

That's what you did with refuse.

You only bury  _ people. _

In between errands, Vader experienced a boredom like never before in his life. He was not allowed to interrupt Palpatine, when the Master was busy, and the clones were still... robotic. They didn't respond to their names being called, they seemed incapable of discussing things, they simply stood at attention and requested orders.

Unless they caught sight of what might be a brown robe, and then they turned into ravenous wolves.

Vader half expected to remove a helmet and find one foaming at the mouth.

All of The Jedi's friends were dead. Dex had been shot when he was discovered to be harboring three scared Jedi children.

It bothered Vader a bit, that one. What would make such a reasonable being like Dex become a traitor? Couldn't he see that  _ peace,  _ an end to the war, was a good thing?

The Jedi's friends were dead, and Vader had little interest in making new friends.

R2 refused to talk to him. Oh, he would  _ comply,  _ when Vader ordered him to ready the ship, or open doors, or take scans, but R2 was silent and often simply looked at him.

Vader had disabled 3PO's speech capabilities. Not with his saber, just with a couple wire adjustments. The protocol droid had been bewailing Padmé, Kenobi, The Apprentice, other Jedi he knew and liked— he had a soft spot for Koon, which The Jedi certainly hadn't known about— and Vader just wasn't interested in hearing it.

So his rooms were silent, now.

They also weren't the ones The Jedi had shared with Kenobi or The Apprentice.

But...

They'd belonged to somebody. Somebody whose death lingered, clinging to the walls like a foul odor.

Because Vader had little else to do in between being used like an attack dog, he'd been reading a lot. Palpatine had a collection of old Sith documents, and a small collection of holocrons. Vader was going through them all, searching for anything of worth.

There were... patterns, he was noticing.

He didn't like admitting it to himself, because it reminded him of those days The Jedi spent with the Chiss on Batuu, and that whole business had been unpleasant.

Still. It would be absurd to deny that he saw the pattern.

Many Sith started out all alone, before they became Sith. Others had people, then became Sith, and... reached a state of aloneness at some point after.

Some of their loved ones fled because they saw the change in the new Sith, were afraid of the heights of power that they could not themselves understand, and fled in cowardice, the way Padmé had attempted to.

Most died. Accidents, enemies...

The Sith realizing they were a weight and a burden preventing the Sith from accessing more power...

Few tried to kill the Sith, the way Kenobi had attempted. Most didn't fight back, but every once in a while, you'd find a person unwilling to just roll over and accept the new reality of life.

Then again, Kenobi hadn't really tried that hard. Padmé's death seemed to have kicked the air out of him, and he certainly didn't have survivors to protect.

There'd just been  _ him. _

He'd forced a fight, of course. Started it. Then fought half-hardheartedly until he grew weary of the facade, feigned tripping on a rock that wasn't even there, and allowed Vader to impale him.

Vader's fist tightened.

Kenobi had been weak.

And Sith, even when they didn't intend to, eventually wound up alone. There was the One to embody power, and the one to crave it, and eventually the student surpassed the teacher and killed him, taking his place, and beginning the cycle anew by finding an apprentice of their own.

Every other being, other than those two important ones, would turn out to be simply resources in the end.

The Jedi had been disgusted with Thrawn, because the man had viewed people as resources.

_ Perhaps he would get along better with a Sith, than a Jedi. _ Wherever he was now.

_ R2 hates me. Every time I walk in the door, 3PO hides because he's scared of me. Kenobi didn't even want to exist in the same universe as me, and there seems to be little point in finding new friends, because they will just be used up and broken down as I go on anyway. _

Obi-Wan had often said that the Force was just one thing, that intent changed what a person tapped into. Selfishness brought a flood of darkness to strengthen one's resolve, and selflessness brought about light.

If there was no one left to care about, Vader would hardly be in danger of not amassing whatever power he might desire. What Vader desired was all that mattered now.

Funny how, in the pursuit of gaining exactly what they wanted...

The Sith of old never once spoke of being happy.

 

* * *

 

He was turning thirty today.

It had been eight years since the rise of the Empire. Eight years, and so far in his “Sith training” he'd learned how to abuse a kyber crystal until it wept blood and so turned red.

And that was about it.

According to the old knowledge, that was  _ not  _ the way it was supposed to be. Sidious was supposed to be creating a second perfect Sith, someone to carry on the line once Sidious fell too elderly to keep on.

Except...

Sidious didn't actually care about the continuance of the Order. He wanted to keep Vader from surpassing him, so that Vader would never overthrow him. Oh, he  _ said  _ all the right things.

But he still refused to teach Vader.

Most everything Vader knew he'd learned on his own, from the holocrons and manuscripts and journals of Sith long dead, and from venturing to various dark side planets to seek knowledge.

The spirit of Mother Talzin had nearly murdered him when he visited Dathomir, though. She had things to say about an Order that  _ wiped out  _ all the other ones. She was quite ready to point out the Jedi Order had never come stomping into her lands to demand her death or to demand her people change. She had some pointed questions about other Force faiths' post-Empire well-being, already knowing the answer.

Vader had wiped out various sects over the years, and taken out families whose bloodlines were known to run strong with the Force. And killed the families from which Jedi had come, in case they wanted to seek revenge.

Palpatine was very thorough in removing threats to... “them.”

Vader had slowly come to realize he really meant...  _ him. _ Not them.

Palpatine was currently obsessed with some little temple on Lothal, something about how the Cosmic Force interacted with time not in a linear way, but all at once. The Jedi had never been particularly strong with the Cosmic Force, though he knew he could have been. He'd had the ability, he just... didn't like feeling the past and the future, messing up his present, so he'd stopped listening, and just listened to the Living Force.

Qui-Gon had felt that to be a reasonable way of life, after all. The Jedi had become aware that Kenobi's strength was the Cosmic and that he had difficulty hearing the Living, and that's why Qui-Gon had continuously tried to reshape him.

Sidious was obsessed with the Cosmic Force. Not because he wanted balance in himself, to hear from both sides of the Force, the Cosmic and Living, but because he wanted what absolute control over what the Cosmic Force could give him.

Which was...

Something to do with shaping the past and controlling the future. He was always vague and poetic in his explanations, as if expecting Vader wouldn't notice the answers never contained substance Vader could use, in spite of being filled with words.

Stalling tactics until Palpatine could point him in the direction of another of Palpatine's enemies and tell him to  _ go kill something. _

He felt like a hitman, except he didn't get paid.

Over the years, Palpatine put less and less effort into his kindly, loving appearance. Occasionally it was pulled from the closet and dusted off, but most of the time, the closeness they'd once had felt...  _ long  _ ago and forgotten.

There were days when Vader almost forgot Palpatine had  _ ever  _ felt like a father.

Which was frustrating, because whenever a stray thought of Kenobi came through Vader's head, it brought with it an aching deep in his bones that Vader hated and despised.

His feet were leading him to their old rooms, which were currently empty.

Palpatine never had people stay there, though certainly no other rooms were sacred.

Vader had avoided going there, but he was thirty today, and R2 had simply blatted at him, a curse and an insult. Something about how there could have been a party, if “You/Anakin” hadn't killed everyone who gave a kark.

3PO had recoiled in absolute terror, expecting his parts-mate to be destroyed, to finally be absolutely alone, but Vader had been too gloomy to scrape up the effort required to be angry with R2.

R2 was wrong, of course. “You” and “Anakin” were two different people. Smashing the words together to encompass it all was foolishness.

Skywalker was the man with loved ones and people who loved him in return.

Vader was the man with power.

It was clear to even the most rudimentary of minds which was better.

_ Power. Power is better. _

But  _ frip  _ if it wasn't miserable.

So  _ yes.  _ He was glooming on his birthday.

The code to the door hadn't been changed, and the door slid aside for Vader.

Dust coated everything, and Force signatures lay faded over everything.

Qui-Gon's had worn away in the decade The Jedi spent with Kenobi. The Apprentice's was still achingly haunting, just wisps of it to be sensed. She hadn't been there as long, and had left early, and her touch had already started to fade  _ before. _

The Jedi's presence lingered, of course.

But worst, and most intense of all, was Kenobi's.

He'd...

He must have  _ come here,  _ after returning to find the Temple...

The sheer agony of heartache, a brokenness and weeping...

Vader nearly backpedaled right away from the door. He hadn't even stepped  _ inside,  _ but that wrenching anguish was nearly too terrible to face. It swirled intense enough that you could believe Obi-Wan Kenobi had died in  _ this room,  _ which was, of course, ridiculous.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had met his end on Mustafar.

There were bloodstains and soot on the carpet, as if someone had knelt there, and a holo of The Jedi at ten years of age with Kenobi lay on the floor. Beside it sat one of a very young Kenobi and Jinn.

There was blood on the bases, too.

A comlink lay before them, reminding Vader of something laid on a grave.

He used the Force to open the recording left on it.

_ “I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Master. He... he's killed everyone I love, except for himself, Padmé and Bail—” _

Oh. Well, Vader had cleaned up after that. No more Padmé. No more Organa.

No more Skywalker.

_ “He's... killed everyone you loved, Master. Adi, Dooku, Yoda, Mace... they're all gone. I didn't save my people, and I didn't save yours either. They're all gone, I'm all that's left. I have to find him. I have to ask why. I have to know  _ why. _ Master... I'm sorry.” _

Vader stared down at the hastily built shrine.

The sound of Kenobi's voice, so strained with agony, so bewildered and  _ not frightened,  _ because the worst had already happened. He'd already had it all ripped from his fingers. No. It was the aftermath of being the most frightened a being could ever be.

What happened after the horror one feared most came to pass.

Why had Vader come here? What was the point?

He was thirty, he was on the path to becoming the most powerful being the galaxy contained. He just... had to find a way to convince Palpatine to teach him more.

Vader's shoulders slumped and he stepped into the apartment.

Oh, look. There was a smear of long-dried blood on the wall, where Kenobi had leaned, trying to stumble in to find the holos, no doubt. Searching for the boy he'd loved and the parent he believed he'd failed.

Searching for ghosts of the dead.

Vader looked down at the worn couch and stared.

A tiny child sat on the couch, his legs hanging primly off the cushion. His hands rested still in his lap, and he looked up at Vader with solemn eyes. Bright red hair stuck out all over his head, looking soft and fluffy, and a tiny braid hung behind his ear. And those  _ eyes... _

_ Perhaps the ghosts are more real than metaphor,  _ Vader thought, glumly, wondering if he was losing his mind. It didn't seem to be too urgent a worry, his heart wasn't even pounding. He just looked at the mournful waif, and the creature looked back.

“Will you kill me too?” asked a small voice, and it was  _ Obi-Wan.  _ Vader didn't know how, didn't know why, but the tiny person in the abandoned, violated home was the child Obi-Wan had once been.

Vader found he had no answer as he simply stood there, feeling impossibly weary.

“You already killed me once,” Obi-Wan said, pressing a small palm to his heart, his expression lining with pain. “It  _ hurt _ .”

“What are you doing here?” Vader asked. “And what do you remember?”

“A sadness. A great, great sadness.”

_ Infinite, you once called it. _

“So alone, everyone dead. All of my friends. I remember I love you, so much, and you killed all my friends.”

The eyes were so wide, gazing up at him, misting with tears, and Obi-Wan choked in a small breath.

“You don't seem afraid of me.”

“You've already done everything to me. I can't see it, but I can feel the soul of it. It's like I'm hollow, like all my insides have been scooped out, and you poured in so much sadness and pain, filled me all up. If you kill me again... I already know what that feels like.” He shook his head. “There's not much point in running away, when you can just hunt me down.”

Small hands fisted in Obi-Wan's lap, he squared his shoulders, ducked his head. “Is it going to take a long time, like last time? Did I scream, last time?”

“No.” Vader crouched, but still Obi-Wan would not look at him. A single tear slipped down the pale, young cheek. “You didn't scream. You were quiet. I think you wanted it.”

“I just wanted the pain to stop. For you to stop hurting me. I don't know why you would hurt me so much. Did you not love me, the way I loved you?”

The older Obi-Wan's voice had said he needed to ask  _ why.  _

That's not a question he had asked on Mustafar, though. Apparently, after seeing Vader kill Padmé...

The why hadn't mattered anymore. He'd just been too wounded to care anymore.

Just needed the pain to end.

_ I did that. I did that to him. _

And now he was back, and he remembered too much, even if he couldn't remember most specifics, and he looked like so many of the Jedi spawn that Vader had slaughtered, and he was waiting to die again...

Here to ask  _ why,  _ because Obi-Wan Kenobi needed to know  _ why. _

_ So you are a ghost. _

Well, that made it easier. This wasn't actually a child. Just Kenobi pretending to be one, to lure Vader into seeing him differently than if he looked himself.

Vader frowned, angry all of a sudden. As if Obi-Wan had any right to manipulate him. He stood, ignited his crimson saber.

Obi-Wan flinched away, face twisted in expected pain. The Force itself seemed to sob.

Obi-Wan stood up, then walked past Vader, heading for the kitchenette,  _ bumping into him  _ as he passed.

_ He's... solid? _

Vader simply watched, still holding the saber as Obi-Wan climbed onto the counter and took down a jar of loose-leaf tea.

“What happens if I kill you?” Vader asked, not entirely confident anymore.

Ghosts didn't feel like flesh and blood.

If they did, they wouldn't be called  _ ghosts,  _ they'd be called  _ reincarnated. _

“A baby will appear on the couch,” Obi-Wan explained without looking up as he filled a kettle with water. “It will cry when you pick him up, and only stop screaming when you set him down and back away. It will remember what it is to die. Twice. And it will remember you... but you will be all he has.”

“ _ Explain, _ ” Vader demanded, the anger returning. “What game is this?”

“The Force intended Obi-Wan Kenobi to be the being who assisted you into bringing Balance to the Force. The Cosmic and the Living Force have been twisted out of alignment. You were created to fix it. I was created to help you get it done. My task wasn't complete when I died. So here's another me.”

“And a  _ baby _ ?”

“If you would not protect Obi-Wan as an adult, then maybe you would protect Obi-Wan as a child. And if you kill me too, maybe you would protect Obi-Wan as the most nonthreatening and helpless of creatures possible, an infant.”

Vader resisted the urge to extinguish his blade. “And if I kill the baby?”

Obi-Wan's shoulders drooped. “Then the Force will try something else. Making me female, perhaps. Or blind or deaf. Or a slave. It will keep trying until you find one version of me worthy of simply being allowed to live.”

That couldn't possibly be true.

“I knew you would never allow this version of me to live, though,” Obi-Wan added, setting the kettle on to boil. He looked so grim and hopeless. “You've already killed hundreds like me. What's one more. And even Qui-Gon didn't see a point in this version of me, so. You're like him, you know. I'm important right up until that snap decision when I'm not anymore. When there's suddenly something wanted  _ more. _ A wife. A new, prodigy padawan...” Obi-Wan turned quiet, sad eyes to him, and Vader found he couldn't move. “You took my place in Qui-Gon's heart and life, you know. And then you took everything else. But look: at least you get to take my life more than once.”

Vader's thumb slipped off the ignition switch.

The saber went silent.

Obi-Wan, small and lonely and so  _ broken  _ and yet going on, because what  _ else  _ was there to do, making tea, what he thought would be his  _ last  _ tea— if he could get it made in time— before he died horribly. Again.

Part of Vader wanted to see if he  _ would  _ be replaced with a baby, then what else...

Another part choked up, trying to make it so he couldn't breathe.

Instincts he'd tried to keep quiet, that had been devastated, horrified, and silent since the slaughter, started screaming again.  _ “This is Obi-Wan! This is  _ Obi-Wan,  _ damn you! You have another chance! Take it you fripping betrayer, you better fripping make it up to him!  _ _**His eyes are so small and sad how canyoueven** _ _ — _ ”

And Vader had been miserable and alone for a long time, and Obi-Wan had actually come to see him on his thirtieth birthday, the only person who came to keep Vader from being alone.

Vader didn't much care if Sidious succeeded with his... time and space Cosmic Force enslaving plan.

So maybe it wouldn't hurt to let this little one live, just for a while.

His decision must have shown up on his face because Obi-Wan's eyes went wide and his expression twisted into horror.

“Oh, gods, I have to  _ stay? _ ”

 


End file.
